Originally designed as a long-range
record-breaking aircraft, the Me 261 had an extremely slender fuselage,
but two DB606 engines - each consisting of two coupled DB601 V-12s. Work
continued even during the war, because of their advanced design. With
their cramped fuselages they had little military value, however. Three
were built, one was used for reconnaissance flights in 1

The Me 261 "Adolfine
"

Me 261 Adolfine

Messerschmitt Me 261 V2, BJ+CQ, in Lechfeld, 1945, following damage
in an air raid

The
Messerschmitt Me 261 Adolfine was an
aircraft, laid out along the lines of the smaller
Bf 110, designed in the late 1930s as a
long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
However, it was not put into production.

Click on Picture to enlarge

3D-model of the Me 261

The Design & Development Of The Me 261

Click on Picture to enlarge

Me 261

In 1937, Messerschmitt began Projekt P. 1064, a
study for a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, and took basic design of the
Bf 110 twin-engine heavy fighter as its
basis.[1]The
P. 1064 had a long, slim fuselage with two wing-mounted engines.Planned from the outset as a record-breaking aircraft,
after becoming convinced that the aircraft was capable of taking the world
long-distance flight record, the Air Ministry approved the project and gave
it the designation of 8-261.[2]

The intended goal of the project was for a completed
example of the aircraft to carry the Olympic Flame from
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (site of the 1936 Winter Olympics) to Tokyo,
Japan for the 1940 Summer Olympics in what would be a record-breaking
nonstop flight.[3]The plan captured the imagination of Adolf Hitler at an early
stage in its design and in tribute, the aircraft carried the unofficial
name: Adolfine.[4]

The Me 261 incorporated a number of features which were
highly advanced for its day.The single-spar all-metal
wing was designed to serve as a fuel tank and its depth at the wing root was
only slightly less than the height of the fuselage.[2]The
fuselage itself was of virtually rectangular section, with space for five
crew members, consisting of two pilots seated side-by-side with the radio
operator, directly behind in the front compartment while a navigator and a
flight engineer were housed in the rear fuselage under a stepped, glazed
station.[1]

Power came from four
Daimler-Benz DB 601 engines, coupled
together in pairs in a "power system" known as the DB 606, originally
developed for the
Heinkel He 177 strategic bomber.Each pair drove a variable pitch propeller through a shared
gearbox, generating 2,700 PS apiece.[4]

The Me 261 had a conventional, retractable tail-wheel
landing gear, although it had unusually large and bulky low-pressure tires,
much like modern day aircraft tundra tires, which prevented the aircraft
from becoming bogged down on rough grass landing strips.The main gear's design appears to use main struts that
rotated through 90º during their rearwards retraction sequence, that had the
sizable main wheels resting atop the retracted struts, much like the
production examples of the
Junkers Ju 88 already used.Even the tail-wheel was a larger-than-average, low-pressure
pneumatic tire.[3]

The Operational History
Of The Me 261

Click on Picture to enlarge

The construction of three prototypes began at
Messerschmitt's Augsburg works during the spring of 1939, but progress was
slow due to the realisation that war would probably soon break out and the
1940 Summer Olympics would be cancelled.The Me 261's
original design brief as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft had been
forgotten and it was viewed as non-strategic and was nearly abandoned, with
all work stopping in August 1939.[5]

However, the Air Ministry realised that it could be a
useful vehicle for evaluating long-range operations and work resumed in the
summer of 1940.[5]

Me 261 V1

The first flight of the Me 261 V1 was on 23 December
1940, flown by Messerschmitt's test pilot Karl Baur. Willy Messerschmitt
wrote to Ernst Udet in early 1941 with the results of the first flight,
predicting a range of over 20,000 km (12,000 mi) for the type.The decision to use the DB 606 engine was a problem because
only a few were available for development projects, as most were needed for
types already in production such as the Heinkel He 177.The Me 261 V1 was badly damaged during an Allied bombing
attack on Lechfeld in 1944 and eventually scrapped.[3]

Me 261 V2

The first flight of the Me 261 V2 was in early 1941.By now official thinking saw the Me 261 as a long-range
maritime reconnaissance aircraft.Messerschmitt had
realised that the fuel-carrying nature of the aircraft's wings ruled out
fitting armaments to them, and so both prototypes were tested for endurance
through to 1943.There was a suggestion that one or
both be used to drop propaganda leaflets on New York City, but nothing came
of the idea.The Me 261 V2 was damaged during the same
Allied bombing attack as the V1 and like it was later scrapped.

Me 261 V3

The V3 differed from its predecessors in being powered
by two DB 610 engines (another paired engine design) and room for two
additional crew members.The first flight of the Me
261 V3 was in early 1943.This aircraft had the
longest series of flight tests.On 16 April 1943, the
Me 261 V3 was flown by Karl Baur over a distance of 4,500 km (2,800 mi) in
an elapsed time of 10 hours, setting an unofficial endurance record which
could not be confirmed due to war conditions.In July
1943, the Me 261 V3's hydraulics failed on landing and the port
undercarriage leg collapsed.The V3 was transported to
Oranienburg for repairs, and after that used on a few long-range missions
for the Luftwaffe's
reconnaissance division.Its ultimate fate is
unknown.[5]